An absorbing study of divided loyalties in a British colony at the beginning of the American revolution.

Focusing on the revolutionary movement in the Fort Cumberland region of Nova Scotia in 1775-76, Ernest Clarke explores why supporters of American independence did not prevail in this British North American colony. He reveals how the siege of Fort Cumberland shaped the attitudes of Nova Scotians to the revolution and to their place in the North American world.

Clarke describes events in Nova Scotia leading up to the siege of Fort Cumberland by the Continental army in 1776 and argues that from the beginning of hostilities Nova Scotians' primary loyalty was to Britain. He examines the attitudes of the various players in the region - New England planters, Acadians, Native peoples, Yorkshiremen, and Scots-Irish - and their responses to the call to arms issued by the revolutionary forces in the thirteen colonies. Clarke is the first to take the Nova Scotia patriots seriously and explain their motives instead of damning them as rebels.

An in-depth study of a British colony's reaction to and ultimate rejection of independence, The Siege of Fort Cumberland will be of great interest to colonial historians in Canada and the United States.

Details

"A tour de force ... By skilfully exploiting a wealth of new detail on the Cumberland siege relative to the whole colony in the 1770s, Clarke's narrative makes an important and impressive contribution to knowledge. Above everything else it is the penetrating detail that makes this study so remarkable." David Bell, Law, University of New Brunswick.

Ernest Clarke is an architect, town planner, and independent historian.